A Bee in Her Bonnet (28 page)

Luke's heart did a flip. “Where's Poppy?”

Lily looked toward the barn. “She was right behind me. I don't know.”

Luke dropped the hose and bolted for the barn. He couldn't hope that she had decided it would be dangerous to try to put out the fire with a cast on her arm. She would never run for safety, especially if her sisters needed her.

Ach!
He loved that about her.

Ach!
He hated that about her.

Luke didn't see Poppy anywhere between the barn and the back of the honey house. He opened the barn door and called her name. No answer.

He worked himself into a panic without much effort. Where could she have gone in a matter of seconds? Hearing a faint meow and a loud hiss, he looked down the lane to see Billy Idol standing sentinel in front of the honey house door. He liked that cat more and more all the time.

Of course Poppy would be doing something
deerich
, foolish. He kicked up the gravel under his feet, sprinted to the front of the honey house, and went inside. He almost passed out with relief. There was Poppy trying to drag a large metal tub across the floor with one hand. Wisps of smoke seeped through the cracks in the wood on the backside of the building. Once the wood caught fire, it wouldn't take long for the whole building to go up yet.

“Poppy,” he yelled, not even attempting to be nice. “Get out of here now.”

“We can't support ourselves without this honey,” she screamed. “I've got to save the extractor.”

He grabbed her by the arm. “It's not worth your life.”

She pushed him away with all the force of her broken hand. “Don't tell me what to do. Just leave me alone, Luke Bontrager.”

He considered throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her out, but she'd put up a fight and probably hate him for saving her life. She wanted the extractor. If he took the extractor out, she'd come with it, wouldn't she?

Sometimes, only sometimes, he kept his head well enough to be smart.

“Come on then,” he said, grabbing one of the handles of the extractor.

Poppy met his eye and grabbed the other handle. It wasn't light, not even for Luke. Together they carried it out of the honey house and set it down before a fit of coughing overtook both of them.

“We've got to get the tools and the empty supers,” she said.

“No more, Poppy.”

“We can't support ourselves without the honey.”

Bitsy came stumbling down the lane dragging two of the biggest fire extinguishers Luke had ever seen. They must have been heavy. She wasn't making much progress.

Luke rushed to her side and took both of them from her hands. “Get them to the fire,” Bitsy said, completely out of breath. “Hurry.”

Luke glanced at Poppy. “Do not go back in there.”

She looked as if she were just waiting for him to go away. He growled but couldn't spare the time to make her promise to stay out of trouble. All he could do was pray she'd decide she'd rather not die in a fire.

Bitsy followed him as Luke lugged both extinguishers around to the back. Lily and Rose were filling buckets and throwing them on the fire, but their efforts were futile. The flames were over six feet high, blistering hot, and getting hotter. Luke handed one of the fire extinguishers to Dan. He showed him how to pull the pin and squeeze the trigger. “Aim for the base of the fire,” he yelled.

Dan nodded. The fire extinguishers popped and hissed as Luke and Dan swept the stream of white, powdery liquid across the base of the honey house.

The fire was no match for two heavy-duty fire extinguishers. It sputtered and seemed to disappear almost instantly. Luke sprayed every possible hot spot even when the fire seemed to be completely out. Dan picked up his rake and spread the garbage out so Luke could spray all of it for
gute
measure.

They studied the damage and breathed a collective sigh of relief. Nobody needed to ask how the fire had started or who started it. The troublemaker had been momentarily forgotten in their happiness of putting it out. Dan threw down his rake and hugged Lily. Bitsy surprised Luke by smiling and slapping him on the back in a rare show of approval. “It is a
gute
thing you are so strong, Luke Bontrager. I would still be dragging those fire extinguishers down the lane.”

“I'm glad I could help. I'm glad you had those fire extinguishers.”

She shrugged. “The handicapped workers were having a sale.”

One corner of the honey house was singed, but there didn't look to be any major damage. Luke would make sure the walls were sturdy before he let anyone back inside.

Inside.

Luke gazed around for Poppy and frowned when she didn't appear from around the front of the honey house. His heart sank. For sure and certain, she'd gone back in to save the hive tools.
Ach!
He would give her the biggest scolding of her life.

The door was halfway open, and he shoved it so hard it slammed against the wall behind it. He didn't mean to be quite so forceful, but his muscles were taut and his nerves were frayed and he didn't temper his own strength. Poppy sat on the floor of the honey house surrounded by a half dozen upended supers. No doubt she'd been trying to carry a whole stack out with one hand and dropped all of them. Blood dripped from a wound in her shin that didn't look too serious, and she tried to scoot her way backward out of the room on her bottom. She didn't make much progress with her injured leg and her one good hand.

Billy Idol, bless his heart, kept vigil over Poppy as if he were guarding her from harm. He wouldn't have been able to drag Poppy from a burning building like a dog might have, but he was a comfort to Luke all the same.

That stupid, adorable cat.

Luke's first impulse was to yell at Poppy for being so stubborn, but he remembered it was one of her best qualities and bit his tongue. She only made him so mad because he loved her so much. He squatted next to her and laid a gentle hand on her shin just above the bleeding cut.

“You should go help with the fire,” she said. Tears pooled in her eyes. She blinked, and they slid down her cheeks.

He pretended not to notice. “The fire's out,” he said, swiping supers aside like blocks. Without asking permission, he slid one hand under her knees and another around her back and lifted her into his arms. Her sigh sounded like a surrender as she snaked both arms, cast and all, around his neck and relaxed into his embrace.

His heart swelled bigger than the sky. He never wanted Poppy to leave the safety of his arms.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he could feel her warm tears against his skin as he carried her out of the smoky honey house with Billy Idol following close behind. “Don't cry, Poppy.” He curled his lips upward. “I'm not so bad. Most girls would love it if I carried them out of a burning building.”

She stiffened and pushed herself away from him. “Most girls? Put me down.”

Stunned, he let her slip from his arms and onto her feet without even asking if she could stand on that leg. As it turned out, she could stand just fine. She swiped the tears from her eyes, threw back her head, and growled in frustration. He'd said something stupid, though he couldn't for the life of him guess what it was. “I didn't mean to upset you,” he said, because he could think of nothing else.

“Most girls might throw themselves at you, Luke Bontrager, but I never would.”

He furrowed his brow. “I never said you would.”

“I didn't throw myself at you. You're the one who picked me up and carried me out of there even though I didn't need your help.”

Luke curled his fingers around the back of his neck. “
Nae
. You never need my help.”

“Dinah Eicher says I throw myself at you because I want a husband.” She glared at him with all the force of a bolt of lightning. “Let me tell you something. No matter what you and Dinah think, I don't need a husband. I don't want a husband, and I certainly don't want you,” she said, as if the very thought stabbed her in the heart. “Just go marry Dinah Eicher and leave me alone.”

Her tortured expression stole his breath. As usual, he had messed up somewhere down the line, and he wasn't sure how to fix it. She turned away from him and limped up the lane. “Poppy, wait,” he said, catching up with her in three giant steps.

She kept walking. He felt as if he'd been forever chasing her. “I challenge you to a race,” he said.

That made her pull up short. She squinted with her entire face. “What?”

“I'll race you to the bridge, and if I win, you will stop glaring at me and listen to what I have to say.”

“I don't want to race.”

He tried to give her a teasing smile even though it was a pretty
gute
bet that he was just as miserable as she was. “Can I just claim victory?” She started to walk away. “It would make it so much easier if I didn't have to chase you into the bathroom. You know how persistent I am.”

Poppy stopped walking, huffed out a shaking breath, and folded her arms. He could see the tears collecting in her eyes, threatening to spill out at one cruel word from him. She didn't understand that he never wanted to make her cry again.

He reached out to take her shoulders and thought better of it. Poppy was in no mood. “First of all, you have never thrown yourself at me, and I have never told Dinah that you have.”

“Then why did she say ... ?”

He held up a finger to stop her from talking. “I won the race, remember? You promised to listen.”

She looked away. “You didn't win anything.”

“I can't help it if you decided to forfeit.” He couldn't resist. She looked so sad, so weary, as if she were holding the entire farm on her shoulders. He placed a hand on her arm. “I am the one who throws myself at you. I've been doing everything I can to show you how I feel, but you won't take the hint. You are very thick, Poppy Christner.”

Her eyes glinted with surprise, and she looked completely and utterly offended. He obviously wasn't getting through.

“I called things off with Dinah the night at the park, and if you think I want to marry her, you're as crazy as a Betsy bug.”

She opened her mouth to argue before it even registered what he had said. “Why ... what? What are you talking about?”

Her expression was a puzzling mixture of strength and vulnerability, as if one word from him had the power to crush her or make her walk away forever. Her eyes, awash with tears, were a brilliant, nearly blinding, color of green, and her lips, full and perfect, pulled him to her like a magnet. In an unbridled moment of utter insanity, he clamped his arms around her waist, pressed his mouth to hers, and stopped the argument that was surely on her lips.

She stiffened and pulled back slightly, but she knew how persistent he was. He felt it the second she decided he was serious. Her posture softened, and she tentatively snaked one arm around his neck, then stood on her tiptoes to bring herself closer to his heart.

Fireworks exploded inside his head. It seemed she had finally grasped what he'd been trying to tell her for days. He loved Poppy Christner so much he thought he might float away to heaven before his time.

With his arms still around her, he pulled away slightly, his lips a mere two inches from hers. “I've been wanting to do that since I cornered you in the bathroom at the park.”

“I probably would have punched you,” she said, softly, breathlessly.

“You are a stubborn, feisty, unconventional girl, Poppy Christner, and I love you so much I can't sleep at night.”

It was a
gute
sign that she seemed more surprised than upset. “Are you teasing me, Luke Bontrager? I don't—”

“You don't need me. Of course you don't need me, but I need you so bad my bones ache. I'm stupid and arrogant, and I've been cruel just because I wanted to be right. I've hurt your feelings a thousand different ways and lectured you up one side and down the other. There is no reason in the world that you would ever love me, but I'm asking it anyway.”

A slow, tentative smile formed on her lips. “Really?”

“For sure and certain.”

She sighed, whether in resignation or contentment, Luke couldn't tell. “Don't gloat, but I believe I love you too.”

He tightened his arms around her. “Then will you marry me?”

She closed her eyes as relief and jubilation flooded her expression. “I never thought I'd hear those words from you.” She giggled. “I never thought I wanted to hear those words from you.”

“I hope you've changed your mind.”

Tiny worry lines appeared around her eyes. “Are you sure you want to marry me? I won't be submissive or demure. You'll hear my opinions whether you want them or not, and I'll insist on using a drill without your permission.”

“How boring to have a wife who never gives me several heart attacks a week. Why would I want someone who wouldn't dream of jumping in the ditch or punching
Englischers
twice her size?”

She drew her brows together. “I just can't believe you would want to marry me. You could have any girl in the community, even Dinah Eicher.”

“Why would I want Dinah Eicher? I've just kissed the prettiest, most exciting, bravest girl in the community. There's no going back. The real question is: Can you stand being married to an arrogant, stubborn man who loses his temper too often and makes clumsy apologies and sometimes can't see past the end of his own nose?” His heart would shrink to nothing if she didn't say yes this minute.